Strategy Pattern Creation in Forest Planning in Swedish Forest-Owning Companies

Malin Nilsson,Dianne Wästerlund,Ljusk Eriksson

doi:10.3390/f4030553

Abstract

Forest-owning companies in Sweden have both a goal to yield a good short-term rate of return on their forest and a goal to maintain a high long-term rate of return by maintaining the production of wood-based products. Both these objectives are taken into account in the forest planning process. For the long-term goal, the companies develop strategies formulated in the forest planning system and for the short-term goal, sale strategies are formulated in the sale plans. These strategies may raise conflicts on how to use the forest resources. These conflicts would occur in the work with the tract bank (TB), the register of stands ready for harvesting. The objective of this study was to analyze how Swedish forest owning companies form their strategy patterns around the work with the TB and to discuss the implications of the pattern formation for forest planning in the companies. Planners and harvest managers at three large forest-owning companies responded to a questionnaire. The results show that the delivery plan based on the sale strategy is often a main factor in determining the content of the TB.

Highlights

Swedish forest owning companies have two main objectives: (a) to obtain a good short-term rate of return on their forests; and (b) to maintain a high long-term rate of return by managing the forests sustainably to maintain their output of wood-based products
Email messages were sent to one person in each company, inviting them to participate. These initial contacts graciously gave the authors the e-mail addresses of a selected group of respondents at each company. The members of these groups included forest planning managers, forest planners, and harvest managers
% 30 planners not at all to some extent quite a lot totally. These results show that even though the harvest managers primarily work on the short-term forest plan and their goals relate to meeting delivery quotas, they are involved in the selection of compartments for the tract bank (TB)

Summary

Introduction

Swedish forest owning companies have two main objectives: (a) to obtain a good short-term rate of return on their forests; and (b) to maintain a high long-term rate of return by managing the forests sustainably to maintain their output of wood-based products. Both of these objectives must be Forests 2013, 4 considered when drawing up the long-term forest plan and determining the forest’s harvesting potential over the coming 10 years. The work of harvesting managers is based around the short-term forest plan and focuses on delivery plans that are made according to the company’s sales of its wood-based products.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion